Black Adam, or Teth-Adam as he is known for most of the movie, is an anti-hero from the past that is awakened after five thousand years of imprisonment. His intentions are, for the most part, good, but his ways of doing them aren’t so much as he is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish any task he faces, whether that includes killing or not. Because of this, the Justice Society (Dr. Fate, Hawkman, Atom Smasher, Cyclone) are called in by Amanda Waller to stop him from wreaking havoc and destruction upon Kahndaq, the city/society the movie takes place in, and potentially the rest of the world.

Black Adam doesn’t exactly have the most compelling or deep story, but man, does it have some pretty awesome action. This is one of those superhero movies that really portrays the most powerful of superheroes in the coolest of ways. Literally all of the superheroes in this film have really interesting and unique powersets, Black Adam and Dr. Fate in particular, so pretty much every action sequence throughout the course of the runtime is an absolute blast to watch.

Additionally, one thing that really makes this film stand out would be its visuals. It has a darker look and higher contrast to it that invokes a more grand-scale and epic feel, and it honestly feels like a Zack Snyder film, which definitely makes it fit in more with his DCEU movies. Similar to Zack Snyder’s previous works, Black Adam also uses a lot of slow motion, and I think every time it uses it, it works very well and elevates the scene to make it more dramatic in a good way.

The Justice Society is also a really neat addition to this now-retconned DC universe. I really like all of the characters, particularly Dr. Fate and Hawkman. The DCEU had a lot of really odd casting choices, but Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate was certainly not one of them. He’s a perfect representation of this character, and, along with Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, one of the castings that I wouldn’t mind seeing return for the new DCU. The other standout, Hawkman, is an interesting character as well, as he certainly has the most character depth in the film, mainly because of his obligation to stop as many people as he can from being hurt, whether they are good or not. He also kind of serves as the main character who is trying to stop Black Adam from all the chaos he is causing.

While Black Adam himself is fairly one-dimensional, and Dwayne Johnson’s performance as him really isn’t anything to write home about (which I blame mostly on the writing), I do think he is a pretty cool superhero/anti-hero. His backstory, while not executed in the movie in the best possible manner, does add some depth to his character, to where he isn’t just a straight-up shallow character, and he does have some motivations going on. I also think his powers, the way he uses them, and the way they are shot are pretty awesome, and he definitely feels like someone who could make a stand against someone like Superman. As happy as I am with there being a new DC universe, I am somewhat curious from time to time as to what the future of the DCEU would have entailed if they had gone where this film hinted at.

I don’t have any mixed, so when it comes to the negatives, again, the story and plot aren’t anything to write home about, and in fact, it’s a pretty generic story. There isn’t really anything too surprising that happens throughout, and you can definitely see where it’s going pretty much from the start. While the action in Black Adam is amazing, it does rely on it so heavily that whenever there is a scene that kind of slows things down for a bit, it’s definitely a bit on the boring side, but thankfully, there really aren’t too many scenes like that.

The last thing I’ll talk about are the two additional characters that sort of add a groundedness to the film, the mom and her son. Their whole deal in this movie is that they are trying to get this powerful crown that would help liberate their city from the people that are oppressively occupying it, and to be honest, it really isn’t all that compelling, because that’s not really what you come to see a superhero movie for. It also constantly loses focus on this whole ordeal, and so it becomes even less and less interesting the further into the film. The characters themselves also weren’t compelling, like at all, and I think the movie would have honestly been better without them.

Black Adam, on paper, is pretty lame and uninteresting, but the action and visual style really make this an enjoyable watch for me.